In the field of sports activities and team games, in recent years those games or sport activities simulating military or police situations have especially developed. Lasertag relates to this field.
The latter is a team game based on military simulation. The activity simulates, using special equipment, battles with faithful reproductions of fire-arms. The lasertag may be performed both indoors and outdoors. Depending on the environment where it is performed and on the type of game system, the tactics of engagement and the aims to achieve change.
The equipment and weapons used are based on the use of projectors of directional electromagnetic beams (typically laser or infrared) and detectors of such beams. In particular, when a beam hits a player wearing special detectors, the latter is expelled. Typically, the weapons further comprise a control electronics and a system of communications therebetween and an operative centre that verifies the hit players, the types of shot, the type of weapon, the type of damage created, the game modality and other.
In this perspective, it is evident how the lasertag is further used in the military and security forces field to perform tactical simulations and for training. In this sense, the weapons used are simulative weapons or conventional weapons where the above mentioned projectors are applied thereto that are controlled by the trigger of the conventional weapon thereof, by a special additional trigger or by appropriate activating means such as, for example, detectors of vibrations and/or sounds and/or lights.
An important aspect of lasertag is to simulate as faithfully as possible the weapon used. In particular, the electromagnetic beam emitted must have a power suitable to the range that the projectiles of the simulated weapon would have. Furthermore, in the interval of distance that the projectiles of the simulated weapon may cover, the electromagnetic beam emitted must have a restrained opening. Finally, it may be necessary to fall within certain standard values to ensure the specific class of laser emission according to whether or not protective devices are used.
In fact, the emitted electromagnetic beams are characterized by the fact that they develop as a cone whose vertex corresponds to the emitter and whose base corresponds to the farthest point that the beam may reach with a suitable power. In order to properly simulate a firing weapon it is evident that at great distance the base of the cone must have a restrained diameter. For example, to simulate a precision weapon the base of the cone must have a diameter typically of 2 to 4 centimeters, while to simulate a normal weapon it is sufficient that such diameter does not exceed 40 centimeters. It is evident that a greater diameter would allow the weapon to simultaneously hit more targets placed side by side, hence losing its realism.
Then, the known projection devices are adjusted in such a manner that at preferred distances the emitted beam has a limited opening. However, the drawback is that beam thereof at close distance assumes infinitesimal sizes risking, for a close shot, that the target does not detect the received shot. In other words, a serious drawback of the known projection devices is that they may not be used simultaneously for close shots and for long-range shots unless losing the realism of the simulation, that is they fail to cover in a realistic manner the entire range of the weapon. Such drawback becomes as much more evident as more sophisticated is the weapon to be simulated and as more distant the simulated weapon may fire. In fact, it is known that some types of guns may fire with suitable precision even within some kilometers. In such case, a known emitter device adjusted to simulate such guns may not properly simulate the weapon for close shots, that is it does not allow to realistically cover the entire path of the projectile to be simulated starting from the outlet of the barrel of the weapon.
Documents US2011/311950 A1, US2007/166667A1, WO2008/085906A2 are also known and teach using more than one projector to simulate the trajectory of a projectile. They also teach performing some geometrical adjustment on the beam, but they do not teach performing a fine adjustment and a perfect adaptation of the beam to the weapon to be simulated.